Quiet Your Life

Category: Feldenkrais

After a few years of taking classes in a slightly obscure somatic practice called the Feldenkrais Method, I decided to dive in deeper and take a training. It’s a 4-year process to become a practitioner and I’m looking forward to sharing what I learn along the way.

Our first 10-day segment in August was a revelation. So many principles of this practice dovetail with my experience of Zen, offering whole new ways to understand the mind-body connection. I look forward to sharing more on that in the future.

Here are my favorite tidbits from each day of the training. Some are distillations of my own experience of the day. Others are the principles of the practice shared by our trainer, Aliza Stewart.

Day 1In Feldenkrais there are 2 answers to everything:
1. The pelvis
2. It depends

Day 2Attention changes everything.

Day 3Movement is the first thing you ever learned.

Day 4Every thought has a muscular configuration. Think about that for a minute.

Day 5There is nothing that warrants certainty. Except maybe this statement?!

Day 6When tired, rest.

Day 7We arrange ourselves to accommodate our limitations.

Day 8From a TEDx talk by computer scientist Dorit Aharonov:
1. Start within your comfort zone and make it even more comfortable.
2. Pick a challenge within your reach.
3. Move away from your desired place and come back to it through different angles.
4. Play with it, connect it to other things you know, make it your own.

Day 9Even God did one thing at a time and then took a rest when he finished.

Day 10Differentiation (feeling differences) is the key to integration (feeling whole).